Creamy Mushrooms at Flour Mill Cafe. Photo / Getty Images
Flour Mill Cafe
409a Manukau Rd, Epsom
Ph: (09) 949 1099
We spent: $78 for two adults and three (small) children
We arrived:
Manukau Rd is a funny old street when it comes to dining. South of the Green
Lane intersection it offers tasty stalwarts KK Malaysian and One Tree Grill and the newer and much-lauded Little Jimmy but from Green Lane north, it's a virtual culinary wasteland until you reach Newmarket - and even then …
Flour Mill attempts to fill that gap but not especially capaciously - a more appropriate name would probably be Flour Sack. Still, we came in hot with two adults and three children and we were able to get a seat on a school holiday weekday morning, so let's not carp or be overly precious about size.
We ate:
Flour Mill is trying to be neither fancy nor ambitious. Epsom is synonymous with conservatism and Flour Mill fits the regional stereotype. The breakfast menu is six items long (excluding sides) and, in support of my thesis, is worth repeating in full: eggs on toast, steak and eggs, creamy mushrooms, buttermilk french toast, omelette, salmon bagel.
We ate the french toast and the creamy mushrooms. Partially by dint of their lack of ambition, partially because they were technically sound, they were satisfyingly adequate examples of brunch standards. This sounds like faint praise and, to some extent, it is but there is a place for straightforward food done well. That place is Epsom.